March242017

my family is so. fucking weird and resistant to talking about anything. when i was a small child i asked my mother why she had a lot of gifts and things where people called her by another name and she like. didn’t give me a straight answer? it was her Hebrew name. like that’s literally it. that’s all u had to say

great-great-grandma cohen refused to tell her younger children that they were related to her two eldest children

my family didn’t tell me about part of my actual name until i sent away for my social security info to get my driver’s permit in my junior year of high school. i have an entire middle name that no one ever felt the need to mention to me

i had to google my own brother to find out why we don’t talk about him anymore

one morning in seventh grade my mother was driving me to school and asked me if she was too overprotective. i told her “yeah, sometimes.” then she casually, calmly went, “maybe it’s because you were almost kidnapped as a baby”

she didn’t even elaborate until i asked her to explain

(my father later confirmed that i was, in fact, briefly stolen as an infant)

my mom just dropped this information on me for the first time and was then like “bye honey have a good day at school”

I love having a blog because it holds the therapeutic value of keeping a diary but instead it’s like shouting into the void TODAY I WAS SAD AND BOUGHT LIPSTICK and sometimes someone else in the vast blackness will hear you and shout back I AM SORRY YOU ARE SAD and sometimes they will gently repeat it and whisper me too and sometimes they will simply hear you and nod and it is very comforting

Broke af?

But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then.

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together.

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing.

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already.

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days.

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that.

If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this.

Reblogging for all the impoverished students. Jack is the breadline queen. And if you don’t need this - donate to your nearest food bank, stat.

Reblogging for students, working folks, and everyone who’s ever had to choose between essentials at the store because you can only afford milk OR bread, not both.

All of the links in the post above now point to somebody else’s website, but you can still find all of the things here:

March232017

i love the part of growth that allows you to look back on a previous period of your life and recognize that parts of it were unhealthy. something that felt so normal wasn’t in hindsight. you’re not supposed to feel that tired all the time. you’re not supposed to be treated like that.